>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

Wilkinson

After continually badgering the county commissioners for many months regarding contract services, the county finally put out a request for bid for peripheral services and repair, which I believe was blatantly mishandled.

As other bidders attempted to submit a bid, they were ignored or their bids supposedly became entangled in a spam filter. As a result, the only bidder was Beaver State.

In examining the bid criteria, numerous requirements unrelated to service and repair were specified. It seems this was designed to give Beaver State a definite advantage since Beaver State has been in the trough to the tune of $100,000 annually for the past few years.

This is an obvious failure by the commissioners who should have questioned why no other bids where received, but instead it was business as usual to rubber stamp the single bid without question.

Due to the mishandling of the bid, it was requested it be reopened, but the commissioners continue to hide behind the shirttail of the county attorney who claims it could expose the county to liability from Beaver State.

I believe the commissioners have allowed one of their department heads, Kathie Powell, to play favoritism and leave other legitimate businesses out of the process.

The Computer Services Department continues to waste taxpayer money by showing favoritism and is unable to perform service in-house instead of by contract. It would be wise for the commissioners to hire fully trained personnel for this department and quit spending $100,000 on contract services.

Dennis Wilkinson

Cove